Here I’ve removed the jam door to better show you how it sits in the blaster.

With a 6-clip.

With an 18-clip

Then pops out using the standard clip release button.

And again, the smaller clips are held in place by this little nub. To release a clip, simply pull down.

OK, enough photos, how does it actually perform? Not as well as I had hoped. I really wanted this to be at least on par with an AR’d Longshot, but it really isn’t. It’s a lot better than the stock Mega firing Centurion in that you’ll be able to use all of your existing darts and clips, but only a metre or two increase in range.

All told, I still think this is a massive step in the right direction towards making the Centurion game relevant, but there’s still quite some work to be done. My next mod on this blaster will be an attempt to improve the stock plunger tube by plugging the slits that run down the side, then I’ll have a go at replacing the spring or maybe even a complete plunger replacement. I like giant blasters and I want it’s performance to match it’s size.

Well this was somewhat of a surprise. Earlier this week I got a message from Pocket of Urban Taggers saying that he had a package from Blaster Parts, their “BCC – Blasterparts-Caliber-Converter for NERF Mega Centurion”. As I’m sure you all know, Pocket isn’t one for modding so I gladly offered to help.

Honestly, I never got the obsession with the Alpha Trooper. It’s a solid blaster, but I always preferred the Raider myself. Therefore I wasn’t super excited about the release of the Elite Alpha Trooper (EAT) as I already had a few Rampages to call my own. I am however apparently in the minority on this front so I grabbed an EAT to see what we could do with it. Today we’ll run through a basic air restrictor (AR) removal and replace the spring. Specifically we’ll be using a Black Tactical V2 spring which is quite a bit shorter than the stock spring, which means we’ll also need to do a few lock removals as supporting mods as well.

Late last year I was gifted the then yet to be released in Australia Nerf Hailfire by the Canberra and Southern NSW Dart Tag group and Hasbro Australia and decided to make a three part review of it. The first was on the performance of the stock blaster, the second on how to modify it, and the third on how it performed in game. We’ve already covered off the first two and given that I don’t yet have an internet connection in the new house as yet and am writing this on my phone, today seemed like the perfect time to post my final reflection piece on the flagship of the new elite line up.

This will be my second write up on the Nerf Rampage. In the first post we went through a basic air restrictor removal. That was a nice start to an already decent blaster but Black Tactical is now stocking replacement springs for the Rampage/Retaliator and wow but are they fun. I’m quite a fan of this rampage at the moment but friends who I’ve done the same swap for have complained that it’s too hard to prime. Not for the feint of heart or arm then!

I had just picked up a brand new Rampage for the purposes of this mod so we’ll be running through the AR removal again. Because the BT spring is shorter than the stock spring, we also need to remove.bypass most of the stock locks.

Welcome back boys and girls! It’s February and it’s time to get back into posting. I’m a little sad for this post because I’ve seen a few mod guides on the Stryfe appear over my time off and I kept wanting to link people back to this post to answer a question, but it wasn’t public yet so I couldn’t. Sad face; I know. Anyway, enough stuffing around, lets get to it. Today we’ll be running through a safety removal and voltage upgrade on the newly released Nerf Stryfe.

Merry Christmas all! This is a little bit of a recap of something I attempted to post a few weeks ago. I’d written the post, scheduled it, then WordPress decided to make it disappear. Sad Face.

Oh well, lets try again shall we. This post will form part two of our three part series on the new Nerf Hailfire. The first looked at reviewing it in its stock form, today’s will cover off some mods to improve it, then in the third we’ll take a look at how those mods worked in game. The main issues I had with the blaster during its first test were to do with the clip advancement. Particularly when loaded with heavier clips, say 18’s, the rotator sometimes simply wouldn’t advance. I’m really not a fan of things not working they way they should so this had to be rectified. The solution for this came from our friends over at S.O.F.T (for which you can check out their original video on the subject here). While we’re fixing the clip advancer, we’ll also up the voltage to increase range and make it easier to reload on the fly.

Enough talking about it, let’s get to it!

_________________________________________________________________________
Tools/Consumables used

As always, we’ll kick off with the blaster in question. Start by removing all of the screws from the shell. If you’ve still got the clip advancement handles on, there’s two screws on the inside of each handle. Remove them then pry the handles free.

In the shell itself there are three different sized screws.

The short one came from here.

The three medium length ones came from here.

The rest are all the standard length Nerf screw.

As always, take a moment at this point to have a good look around the blaster and try to get an understanding of the internals.

Happy? Good, lets continue.

Remove the jam door.

Then the trigger; it’s held in by one black screw.

Then the dart pusher bar.

Like so.

Move to the front and remove the clip advancement handle bar.

Then remove the motor assembly.

It’s held in by one screw here.

You can then access this bar. Remove it and the rest of the clip advancement assembly.

Like so.

It’s held together by this screw; remove it.

Right, now the real work begins.

On the bottom of the mag well there’s one centre screw, remove it.

And the turret and magwell will cove free.

We’ll start with the turret.

It should come apart into three pieces.

Remove the screw in the clutch assembly.

It will separate. The point of this component is to act as a slip clutch; we don’t want that.

Instead we’re going to glue it together. Be careful not to get any glue in the advancement track (the toothed bit in the middle here) as it might interfere with the advancement rod.

The next issue is this gap here. The bottom part of the turret is too long, which allows for unnecessary movement between the magwell and the shell; we don’t want that. What we’re going to do is shorten the turret so the magwell butts up hard against the shell.

We need to remove 3~4mm from the bottom of the turret but very much treat this as a trial and error game. Cut a little, reassemble, check clearances.

Reassembly goes in this order…

Once it’s back together we can check clearances. The photo below shows you what we’re aiming for; no more gap. Again, cut a little, reassemble, check clearances until you get this. You will not get it right on your first try.

Once you’ve achieved that we can actually start putting the blaster back together.

The advancement rod goes this way.

Place the whole assembly back in the blaster.

Reattach the spring.

Replace the motors and screw.

Then the priming handle.

Then the pusher bar.

Then the trigger.

Then the jam door.

Like so.

Replace the shell and we’re essentially done.

To make it easier to reload on the run I also decided to ditch the wings.

Yay dremel!

Finally the voltage increase. Nothing special here, just replaced the standard AA batteries with higher voltage Trustfires. I tried combinations of 2, 3 and 4 (roughly 8, 12 and 16 volts respectively) and found that I preferred 12v. It sure does shoot further at 16v, but the accuracy is incredibly decreased.

Stock (6v): 7-8m
12v: 11-22m, most within 12-13m
16v: 15-32m, most within 19-23m

Ok; continuing on from where we left off last week, albeit with a similar but different blaster. Nerf’s Retaliator is the elite version of the old N-Strike Recon. I was always relatively partial to the Recon, it was my first Nerf branded blaster, so I was interested to see what could be done to the Retaliator. This week we’ll be briefly covering the AR removal process that we did last week on the Rampage, the process is essentially the same between the two blasters, and adding an additional spring.

Then the rest of the screws in the shell. They’re all the same size except one.

This screw at the front of the blaster is significantly longer than the rest. Remember this when it comes to reassembly.

You might not notice at first but there are also two screws hiding under the cocking mechanism. Pull it back to reveal them.

Once they’re all out you’ll be able to separate the shell. As always, take a few moments to familiarise yourself with the internals.

Comfortable? Good. Time to continue the disassembly process.

We’ll start by removing the spring.

Then the catch.

Then the plunger assembly.

Pull the breech back a little.

Like so.

Then lift it out.

Here you can see the new dart stopper. It’s much better than the old one in the Recon.

Ok, back to the breech.

I forgot to take a photo from this angle so here’s the breech from the Rampage. Apart from the priming bar extending forward it’s essentially the same thing. Using a small screwdriver, push this rod all the way out.

Allowing us to separate your breech from the bolt sled.

Grab your drill and go to town on the AR.

Then clean it up with a hand file

Place the breech back in the bolt sled and replace the bar.

Ok, AR removal done; time to start work on the spring addition and to move to the back of the blaster.

When we first put the NIteFinder spring in, you’ll notice that it’s too big. This means we can’t close the blaster and that it obviously won’t work.

So lets fix that! Grab your Dremel and remove just enough of the shell so that the spring fits. Take this process very slowly, checking at every step of the way. If you remove too much, the spring won’t seat correctly and it all might not work.

It should be able to close cleanly with the larger spring in place.

Once you’re satisfied with the shell mods, clean up the burred/melted plastic with a knife.

Now remove the plunger from the tube. Some people have said that you have to heat up the plunger tube to get the back orange ring off in order to do this. Nuts to that, just pull it out at an angle and it will come out just fine. Nothing fancy required.

Here we can see the inside of the plunger head. The dead space in between the X is what we’re going to fill.

With hot glue. Don’t fill over the X as it will then interfere with the priming of the blaster.

Enough of the mods, time for reassembly! Place the bolt sled back in the shell, taking notice of lining up the priming handle too.

Put the plunger back in the tube.

Then the tube back in the blaster.

Then the catch. The cutout should face forward, spring side down.

Then replace the spring. Start with the stock spring, then slide the stock NiteFinder spring over the top of it.

You’ll notice that the spring is slightly too long. That’s ok, it’s easier to continue with it hanging out a little. We can push it back in once the blaster is half together.

Replace the other half of the shell, put a few screws in the front, then push the springs in the back. You should then be able to hold it together while you replace the rest of the screws.

Reattach the end cap and we’re done.

It’s stupidly windy outside at the moment so I can’t give you a definitive range increase over just the AR removal but from basic testing, it’s freaking impressive. I used it in a game this past weekend, range would be close to my BT modded Stampede.

Hooray! Guess who got their hands on the latest and greatest from Nerf? Yep that’s right kids, I managed to grab a Rampage and a Retaliator. We’ll only be looking at the Rampage today, but rest assured that it’s brother won’t be too far behind.

Not yet officially released, and by that I mean you can buy it from an assortment of stores in the US but Nerf is still saying that they’ll be here in September, the Rampage is the Elite variant of the old N-Strike Raider. The shell looks like it’s just another repaint, but it’s the internals and the new darts that we’re all really interested in. This is because Nerf has apparently listened to it’s fan base and managed to cram a direct plunger system into the old Raider shell, all while retaining that brilliant clip loading, slam-firing action we all love. But enough on the blaster, lets get to it!

It’s held on by five screws. It’s probably worth noting at this point that all the screws in this blaster are the same, so no need to remember which one goes where.

With that in mind, we can remove the rest of the screws from the shell.

These internals are not like those you’ve seen before. Really do take the time to have a good look around at this stage and figure out how it all works.

Interestingly if you look here, you’ll notice that the breech isn’t all the way closed. This is because the dart door is sprung much harder than in other blasters and actively forces the breech back a little.

However, when you prime the blaster or simply pull the priming handle all the way forward, it will fully close.

Ok, lets continue with the dis-assembly.

Remove the trigger and the dart holder.

Then the front barrel.

Like so.

Take the spring out.

Then the whole breech and plunger assembly should come out in one piece.

Like so.

Pop the catch off the back.

Then pull the breech out the front of the plunger.

The only Air Restrictor (AR) is in this front part of the breech.

These four little nubs hold the spring in place, which in turn forces the AR forward. When air rushes forward it pushes the AR back against the spring, allowing air to pass through to the dart.

We instead want a clear path.

Grab something small (nail, screwdriver, what ever fits) and push the bolt sled pin all the way though.

Allowing you to separate the breech from the bolt sled.

Start from the back of the breech with a small drill bit to get yourself a pilot hole, then move in with a larger bit to destroy the AR. I used a 3mm and then a 9mm bit, but whatever works for you should be fine. Once you’re done, it should look like this.

The spring and dart peg should fall out intact.

Then move in with you hand file and clean up the remaining dags.

Same view from the front.

The plunger itself already has a perfect seal form factory, so no need to mess around there. We’ll instead cut straight to reassembly.

Insert the breech back in the plunger tube.

Place the whole assembly back in the blaster.

Replace the catch. It has a cutout on one side; that side should be facing forward.

Slide the spring back in place.

Move up to the front of the blaster.

Replace the barrel, then the front piece. It needs to go with the two pegs facing down.

Like so.

Put the trigger and dart holder back in place.

Almost done!

Put the other half of the shell back on and screw it in place.

Replace the priming grip.

Finally, replace the end cap and we’re done. One AR’d Rampage.

Range testing for this one was done between rounds at an inside game, so zero external influences. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any elite darts with me to that game so we’re stuck with streamline ranges.

Stock – 11m average with an 8-12m spread
AR’d – 14m average with a 12-16m spread